The Marin County Housing Authority on Jan. 14 accepted its audited financial statements for fiscal year 2023. Novogradic & Company issued an unmodified opinion on the authority’s financial statements while issuing a qualified opinion on major federal award compliance due to findings related to eligibility, waiting list documentation and housing quality inspections.

Rich Larsen and Jason Blumenstock of Novogradic presented the audit. They said the auditors did not identify material weaknesses in internal control but found compliance exceptions within major federal programs that triggered a qualified opinion under the single-audit (Uniform Guidance) requirements. The auditors tested the housing voucher cluster and public housing programs, which together represented about 94% of federal awards expended.

"We issued an unmodified opinion on the financial statements — the highest level of assurance — and a qualified opinion on the major federal awards due to certain compliance exceptions," Blumenstock said.

The audit package included management’s corrective action plan. CFO Kim Dolan told the board staff had already implemented many corrective steps, citing staff turnover that affected file completeness and the migration from paper to electronic files; she said that inspections previously performed by an outside vendor are now performed in-house with new monitoring steps to ensure failed units are placed on payment hold until corrected.

Auditors highlighted strong liquidity. Novogradic reported the authority’s current assets of about $16.3 million against current liabilities of roughly $3.5 million, yielding approximately $12.7 million in working capital — equivalent to about 11 months of operating reserves based on the authority’s monthly overhead.

Commissioners asked about cybersecurity overlap with audit controls; auditors noted cyber-attack activity discussed in public comment occurred after the audit period and was not part of the FY2023 testing but agreed human factors complicate prevention. The board voted to accept the audited financial statements and approved the audit reports; staff committed to report corrective-action progress to the board.